Battery and Solar woes

Gdetrailer wrote:

2.2A-4.5A solar charge?

You are severely and chronically undercharging T105 batteries..

I think you are severely underestimating your energy usage and needs which contributes to killing your batteries in a hurry.. Properly maintained even with 50% DOD but promptly recharged those T105s should net you 9-11 yrs worth of service..

Typically with solar you get about 5 peak solar hrs worth of charge.. even a 4.5A for 5 hrs that is only 22.5Ahr worth of charge. That means you need to be running a gen for several hrs in the morning and several hrs in the evening and even that most likely will still fall short.

You need to audit your actual energy usage.

Your fridge uses battery to run the control board and open the gas valve.

Your water heater if it is DSI has a 12V control board and gas valve that like the fridge uses 12V battery.

The built in stereo system even if it is turned off sneaks 12V power..

Your propane gas detector also uses 12V battery power..

Furnace has a control board that uses 12V power even when the furnace is not running..

If you have a A/C unit with remote T stat, it too has a 12V control board that uses 12V even when A/C is not running..

If you have an inverter powered up all the time, it to uses 12V even when no 120V load is attached or turned on.

You can turn off all items and insert a Ammeter and see how much current is being drawn from the batteries without solar or converter running. Then one by one turn on those devices and record how much power is being used.. This will give you a better picture of your power usage.

If the total draw with just the fridge and water heater turned on is 1A or more you will have exceeded your potential 22.5Ahr harvest of your solar panel per day.

You most likely need more solar panel wattage and/or more gen run time..

I was aware that the fridge and Water heater would be parasitic draws, but never even considered stuff like the furnace (even when not in use) or AC. Propane detector is less than 100mA.
If I remove the fuses for these draws, will that disable them fully?

As I mentioned in the original post, my buddy has the same batteries but with 190W of solar panels and his batteries showed FULL charge on the hyDrometer. He has a Rockwood 2304 with similar accessories and doesn't seem to have any issues keeping his batteries at 100%.
According to calculations, he would only be harvesting about 50 A/hrs of energy daily.